As an industry founded in technology, it should come as no surprise that SEO best practices remain in a constant state of change. In fact, many SEO ‘best practices’ from only a few years ago would be regarded as marketing suicide for any website today (keyword stuffing, link buying, etc.) In the past decade SEO has been proclaimed to be dead over a million times, yet it continues to survive and thrive despite a countless number of algorithm updates. It’s safe to assume that SEO isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but the nature of the beast is evolving. What can we expect from the SEO world for 2016-2017? Continue reading as we divulge our predictions for what’s to come from SEO in the next year.

Overall Trend: Mobile Optimization Is Key

2015 has been a big year for mobile. Back in April Google announced the release of the Mobilegeddon update which penalized sites for failing to be responsively designed. In May the search giant proclaimed that mobile had officially surpassed desktop in search volume. Mobile search optimization is now more important than ever and it has brought about the three of the four trends we’ve predicted below.

1) Local SEO

Local SEO has always been important, but for 2016-2017 it will be more important than ever. As competition for organic results continue to grow, winning over local search queries offers the best shot companies have at getting their web properties in front of the right audience. Local search has clear synergy with mobile search and voice search. Google’s recent pigeon update has more than demonstrated their commitment to this aspect. The best way to optimize for this trend is to make sure your Google Map information is current, create listings on local directories and review sites with consistent NAP information, and write content optimized for local keywords. Furthermore, you may want to integrate your business information into mobile apps. Google now scrapes data from mobile applications and displays that information in search.

2) Voice Search

Tying in with the increasing prominence of mobile search is the growing importance of voice search. A study conducted by Northstar Research found that 55% of teens use voice search on a daily basis and 56% of adults enjoy using voice search, because it makes them feel more tech-savvy. The truth of the matter is that voice search will only continue to grow in 2016-2017 in light of the fact that speaking is far easier than typing. Mobile users are more apt to ask Siri, Cortana, or Google Now their query rather than typing it out, especially while double tasking or on the move. How do you optimize your web properties for voice search? Think about the primary difference between a voice search and a typed search. For example, let’s say a user is searching for a donut shop in Rochester, MI. On a desktop that user would more than likely type a query along the lines of ‘donut shop Rochester’. However, using voice search the query would more than likely be something along the lines of ‘Where is the nearest donut shop?’ As your natural intuition may have already told you, voice searches are characterized by the use of question words: who, what, where, why, and how. Therefore, to optimize your web properties for mobile search you’ll want to reformat some of your headlines into questions that include question words.

3) Structured Data & Direct Answers

What are direct answers and structured data? Do you ever wonder why certain sites get yellow stars, prices, or thumbnails under their search listing? The answer is structured data. The term may sound off-putting, but it’s simply a method of tagging the data in your web pages with schema markup so that search engines can better understand them. Schema.org provides a lot of great resources for you to get started with implementing schema markup. Additionally, you can use Google’s structured data testing tool to test whether your schema implementation was successful.

Direct answers are answer boxes that appear as the first result in certain search queries. In the case above, the definition of pie doesn’t get a source link. However, links to the source are provided roughly 75% of the time, which is good for your site if your content becomes a direct answer. To have your content featured in an answer box you’ll want to work to become an authoritative source for the answer to a question while including appropriate structured data markup. Search Engine Land has an excellent post with more info on how to optimize for Google’s direct answer box. Structured data and direct answers have become far more prevalent in Google search results. In fact, Google now provides rich snippets or direct answers for approximately 19% of all search queries. This percentage is expected to grow over the course of 2016 with some serious implications for search. The bottom line is that you’ll want to start included structured data on your sites. You may not be comfortable with Google using your information without referring visitors, but it’s certainly better than being left out of the loop entirely!

4) Digital Marketing Synergy

Those in the industry know that the very way SEO is described has changed. SEO has now become almost synonymous with content marketing. As search engines place more emphasis on social media indicators and high quality content SEO no longer stands on its own anymore. Some agencies hire content marketers and social media managers to produce content to be handed off to SEO experts for optimization. Instead, content should be created with SEO in mind from the very beginning. We predict that it will become increasingly important for content and social media marketers to have an understanding of search without reliance on SEO experts.

Did We Miss Anything?

Are there any anticipated SEO trends you believe we missed? Leave a comment below. We’d love to hear your opinion!

In the dynamic web industry trends don’t last very long. New and exciting concepts, techniques, and tools are constantly being introduced. Creative minds are always working hard to keep the industry fresh by challenging norms and developing innovative new styles. In other words, a lot can change in a year, and as 2015 comes to an end, Tipping Point has an eye on 2016-2017 and what a new year could bring to the table for the world of web design. As any web designer knows, keeping your finger on the pulse of the industry is incredibly important. What new trends will we see pop up and which trends will finally be laid to rest? Continue reading as we explore what 2016-2017 could have to offer for the wonderful world of web design.

Overall Design Theme For 2016-2017: Differentiation

Google’s ‘Mobilegeddon’ update forced responsive web design to become ubiquitous around the web. We’ve reached a point where the majority of “pretty websites” all look the same, but we believe that’s all going to change in 2016. In fact, we predict this upcoming year will bring more well thought out and unique user experiences. How’s so? We have a couple of ideas in mind that we believe will start to trend.

1) Storytelling

Designers are giving users rich, unique experiences through the use of visual storytelling. Storytelling through means of a website can be quite a complex endeavor, but it’s not impossible. We absolutely love Peugeot’s Hybrid Graphic novel. The site does a beautiful job of entertaining users with a scroll-able interactive graphic novel while also allowing them to learn about Peugeot’s HYbrid4 technology. We highly recommend you visit this site if you haven’t already. It’s a blast to scroll through and it serves as great inspiration for interactive web storytelling that makes learning fun.

2) Semi-flat Design

After Windows launched its Metro style, the design world became inundated with flat design. However, flat design did come with some pitfalls and has slowly been morphing into semi-flat design to correct usability issues. By integrating depth and dimension through the use of subtle shadows, cards, and well-thought out transitions, semi-flat design has become a much better design alternative due to its ease of usability. Semi-flat design appears to alleviate all of the problems caused by flat design and we expect to see much more of it in 2016-2017.

3) Custom-Made Illustrations

“Why should I design another _____ icon when I can just grab it off an already existing vector pack from the web?” This line of thinking crosses designers minds on a daily basis and there is merit to it. Stock icons and illustrations save time and money, but why not include extra time and money for custom-made illustrations in the first place?

Sites like lighthousebrewing.com, hungercrunch.com, and iceandsky.com all feature custom/hand-drawn illustrations that add an extra layer of visual appeal and create a truly unique website experience. We predict that sites will be implementing more custom-made features and illustrations to differentiate themselves from the herd of cookie cutter websites.

4) Unique Grid Use

Curious Space’s website serves as the perfect example for creative grid design. One of the first things that may jump out at you is the fact that the images are stacked on top of each other. Stacking images isn’t a problem, because as the user rolls over an image the z-index of the image shifts bringing the photo to the top of the pile. Additionally, upon first entering the site the logo appears in a haphazard arrangement (see below image), but after scrolling further down the page everything aligns into place spelling out Curious Space. Be sure to visit this site for inspiration on adding a pinch of organic freedom to an ordered grid layout.

5) Cinemagraphs

Remember when we posted about cinemagraphs and their use in social media? Cinemagraphs are extremely powerful visuals. They enhance the desired mood of a website and give sites an additional layer of wonder, mystique, and elegance. We haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. Cinemagraphs are better than videos because they don’t eat up as much bandwidth, and they’re certainly much better than photos, because they provide something more than a simple still shot. This technology isn’t new, but we do expect to see it integrated into more websites in the coming year, because let’s face it…cinemagraphs are so hot righ now.

6) Widespread Parallax Adoption

In case you’re not already familiar with parallax, parallax is a type of effect applied to the speed and movement of background imagery. The background of the website moves at a different speed than the rest of the page which gives sites the illusion of depth. As computers and related technology get better at handling such effects, we can certainly expect to see more websites utilizing them. To see parallax in action, check out Peugeot’s hybrid graphic novel which we mentioned earlier, or The Boat. The Boat plays out much like the hybrid graphic novel, but is based on a story written by Nam Le. As you scroll the story unfolds and different website elements fall into place to illustrate the events taking place. If you have some free time and are in the mood for a good story, The Boat is certainly a site worth checking out.

7) Lazy Loading

Lazy loading aids in viewing content immediately without waiting for an entire page to load. This technique is utilized on sites that feed content such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. In a society where information is constantly being fed into our lives, lazy loading helps to simplify viewing said content one chunk at a time. Being that load speed is important for both SEO and website conversion rates, we expect more widespread utilization of lazy loading in 2016-2017.

8) Centered/Split Content

Centered content is a powerful style that will become ever more prevalent on home pages. Centered content places the main message smack dab at the center of the screen with striking visuals or smooth textures surrounding it to create a dramatic visual effect. This layout works brilliantly for pages with minimal content like home pages. However, pages with more substance will more than likely also be getting a face lift with split content layout design. Split content divides the screen into wide sections. The major benefit to the split content design is that look of each section can very greatly without being dictated by a single aesthetic tone. This in turn gives designers more creative freedom without threatening the clarity of content hierarchies.

Do You Agree?

These are all of the trends we believe will be big for web design in 2016-2017, but we want to hear from all of you! Do you agree with us? Are there trends we haven’t foreseen that you believe will be big this upcoming year? Drop us a comment with your thoughts in the section below. Regardless of whether we’re right or wrong, 2016 looks to be an exciting year for web design.

Make Changes ASAP

First, and foremost, any SEO changes you’re going to make should be made as soon as possible. Google takes time to scan your changes and update your search ranking. According to the 45 day rule, publishing your content a week before a major holiday will allow you to engage in 50% of the search engine traffic, while starting 45 days in advance will help you participate in over 90% of the search traffic.

While it’s a little late this year, it would be to your benefit for next year to create a holiday preview or holiday deals page 2 months in advance in order to start building SEO juice for holiday pages in relevant holiday search queries ahead of time. The Pier 1 page featured above serves as a great example.

Publish Holiday Content

In order to rank for holiday keywords, one of the easiest things to do is create pages or blog posts filled with holiday content. It’s a given many customers will be turning to Google for gift ideas, suggestions, and recommendations. You can intercept these searches and bring traffic to your site by writing a detailed holiday gift guide that includes your product or service (“The 10 Best Christmas Gifts For Your Mom.”) Keep content quality guidelines in mind as you write your posts. Your posts should be somewhere between 2,000 to 3,000 words long for best results. You’ll also want to optimize any holiday imagery you add to your content. Your images should include words like “Gift”, or “holiday” in their file name and the alt-tags should be optimized similarly to include holiday rich keywords. Google Trends and Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool are invaluable sources for brainstorming relevant keywords to include in your SEO strategy.

A quick search for “Gifts” in Google Trends reveals that rising gift related searches include “gifts for boyfriend,” and “gifts for girls” among others.

Optimize Your Landing Pages

The keywords you would normally optimize your landing pages for won’t cut it for the holiday season. Most customers will search a variation of normal queries with the addition of one or more of these terms:

Gifts

Deals

Free Delivery

Sales

Cyber Monday

Discounts

Black Friday

Free Shipping

To further optimize your landing pages you’ll want to research the most popular keywords in your industry and optimize for them with the addition of one or more of the keywords above.

Increase Your Loading Speeds

You’re probably already aware that loading speed is a key component in Google’s ranking algorithm. Increasing your site’s loading times will not only help you rank higher in serps, but it will also help you increase your conversions. According to Kissmetrics, even a one second delay in your site’s loading times will result in a 7% drop in conversions. To combat slow load times you should check your site using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. After inputting your website address PageSpeed Insights will return a list of recommended changes you should make to increase your load speeds.

Optimize Site Meta Tags

If you want searches to click into your website you have to entice them with your meta tags. It’s no secret holiday shoppers are attracted to deals and promotions. If you want to beat the competition, include any deals or promotions you offer in your title and description meta tags to improve organic click-through rate. According to Experian, the most sought after terms during the holiday season are:

Free shipping

Deal of the day

Discounts

Working those into your meta tags is a sure fire way to get a leg up on your competition.

Promote Customers Reviews

It’s no secret that positive reviews are great for business, especially during the holiday season. After analyzing data from several U.S. retailers the consumer content engine, Bazaarvoice Network, plotted the correlation between the number of positive reviews and an increase in sales across different industries. Their results can be found below. The results are based off of companies that went from having one review to 15 reviews with an increased product rating from 3.5 to 4.5 stars.

Reviews send a strong trust signal to potential customers, but they also help with your search marketing efforts. Each and every new review a product receives adds more content to the page and expands the number of keywords a page could rank for. Therefore, you should start encourage customers to leave reviews by:

Search through the reviews you have for reviews that say something along the lines of, “best gift ever,” or “the perfect gift for uncles.” These reviews are great because they’ll increase the probability that your page shows up for those terms. Take those reviews and try to find a way to display them prominently within your site. It’s extremely helpful for a shopper who’s wondering what would make a perfect gift to find a review for your product or service stating that it’s the perfect gift.

In conclusion

There’s no denying that the holiday season is the busiest time of year for both online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Don’t use this as an excuse to let your SEO performance slip through the cracks. SEO is vital in the digital era we live in. Your potential customers are online searching for the perfect gifts for their wife/husband/child/brother/sister/uncle/aunt/office secret santa, right now. You could be the answer to their searching, but only if you can get your business in front of those searchers via increased SEO. If your organic results are not what you’d hoped they’d be, you need to remember that the earlier you start making changes the faster you’ll start turning your ranking around.

If you need help building your holiday/local SEO digital marketing strategy, we’re more than happy to share more secrets with you. Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have.